Reality's Game
by CherubKatan
Summary: Ran's a huge gamer. One day his parents buy him the latest system, A V.R. machine so he plays it. Then his parents are killed and he becomes an assassin... is this really reality or is it still the V. R. game? Chapter 6 is now up
1. Chapter 1: The Beginning

            I don't own the series Weiß Kreuz. It is owned by Takehito, Koyasu, all rights belong to him and may he never sue me for using his characters without his permission.

Note: _Italics,_ expresses a person's mental thoughts throughout this story. Also this is most definitely and Alternate Universe story… so if you don't like my interpretation of the characters… then… Oh well… no skin off of my teeth ^_^

Reality's Game

Chapter 1: The Beginning

            "How are they doing?" A voice spoke out in a tiny room.

            "They seem to be doing fine, then again they are highly adept at hiding their emotions and thoughts."

            The soft tapping of nails on hard wood seemed to fill the silence that grew in the few minutes after the last disembodied voice spoke.

            "Good, speed up the process then. We have to know what will happen before we can make a sound judgment."

            "Impossible! Doing that could kill them!"

            The tap, tap, tap of the nails ceased abruptly. "And if that happens to be the case…  they aren't worth our time or effort."

~

            As every weekend went by, a person could always find Ran Fujimiya in the electronics and gaming store within the mall. He was one of those few people who lived for nothing but the games, but he also lived majorly for his sister and family as well, and that was what ended up brining him to what he wanted to call a dilemma, which he was facing at the moment.

            He looked at the latest gaming system and sighed. He longed to buy it, but he couldn't, he was helping his sister out by saving his money, so she could go to the nursing school she wanted to go to, and that meant no more spending money on new games, or new systems, such as the one he was currently looking at.

            It was a virtual reality system and top of the line at that. No longer had a person have to use control pads to play, but your own arms and legs. You were actually yourself, not some made up character, and that had most gamers drooling from the get go. The only draw back of the system was that it had only one game to it and there was no word about another to be released but Ran had this feeling that the creators of the system were just bidding their time, waiting to see how big of a success they would make before bringing out any other games. Their way of figuring out if their system was a bomb. Which Ran approved of whole-heartedly.

            _If I get this now,_ he thought to himself, _then it would take me even longer to get Aya the money for school, on the other hand… she has no idea that I'm doing this for her, so it would only cut me back by a few weeks worth of pay._

            Ran sighed, he had set a goal before him, to get his sister enough, or at least part of the money for her schooling, by the time of her sixteenth birthday came around. So far, with the rate he was going, he was succeeding. Yet, he couldn't help but feel slightly bitter, because he was unable to get what he would like to own for quite some time.

            "Ran, honey, its time to go now," his mother called out to him from the entrance of the store.

            "I'm coming," he said and with one last look of intense yearning, he turned around and left the store.

~

            A few weeks had passed since that day in the mall. Ran would always go back to that store, would always stand there, staring at the machine with some others, hoping that they could afford it, then turn to leave, saddened by the fact that he couldn't have it, but not really begrudging the reason to why he could never have it.

            Ran walked through his front door. "Mother? Father? I'm home," he called out as he dropped his book bag on the floor next to the door and walked over to the couch.

            He was just about to sit down on the plush couch in weariness, when he saw a note addressed to him lying on the coffee table.

            He hadn't been expecting a letter from anyone, but he was curious to find out what it said and whom it was from, so he picked it up and glanced at it.

            The letter really wasn't long one. It barely contained twenty words, and what it did have just said, "Meet us in the kitchen son, we have something for you. Love, Mother, and Father."

            Ran raised his eyebrow at the letter. It was rare of him to receive such a note from his parents, much less them having something for him. They rarely bought things for him except for the occasional new clothing and such items that were a necessity to have. He let out a soft groan. _They probably have another one of those ugly orange sweaters that mother thought would just look sooo "adorable" on me,_ he thought as he made his way over to the kitchen door. _I wish she would finally realize that orange shirts, of any kind, really clash with red hair, pale skin, and violet eyes._ He shook his head and walked through the door.

            His mother and father were seated at the glass dining room table, where the family gathered at least twice a day, or tried to, sipping on cups of hot green tea. The aroma from the tea drifted lazily over to Ran, tantalizing him and at the same time reminding him of how tired he was.

            His mother looked up from her cup, spotting her son, and smiled at him. "Welcome home," she said warmly. "Would you like a cup of tea?"

            Ran nodded, "Hai, please?" Walking over to the table he sat down at his customary place, in the middle of both parents, while his mother stood up and made him the mug of tea.

            As his mother went about doing this, he glanced over at his father, hoping that he would speak up and finally tell Ran what all this was about. He had no such luck though since his father was currently enthralled with the day's newspaper and not paying attention to anything around him.

            After a few moments of silence within the room, the soft clank of the teacup hitting the table reached his ears. He looked down. A cup of steaming hot tea sat in front of him, placed there by his mother. He moved his eyes over to where she sat and found her sitting there, gazing at him in expectation.

            "Thank you," he said and took a sip from the cup. The taste of the bitter tea filled his mouth and a warmth flowed through him, momentarily washing away the weariness that was still over powering him. He set the mug down and smiled. "This tastes great, mother."

            A small smile crept over her lips. "You're welcome, dear. Now, your father and I have something for you." She turned to look at her husband. The smile that delicately graced her lips slowly bent into a frown when she realized that Ran's father was still engrossed in the newspaper. Gently she laid her hand on one of his arms and spoke up again, "Honey, why don' you tell him about it?"

            Ran's father pulled the paper down from in front of his face, "Huh? Tell who, what?"

            She rolled her eyes at her husband's air headedness, "Tell your son about what we bought for him."

            "Oh, yes, that." He folded the paper and laid it down on the table. "Alright. Son, your mother and I, we know what you've been doing for your sister this past year." He started out.

            Ran grew slightly pale as he father said that. His parents were the type of people who always believed that if you couldn't work for something you wanted, then quite obviously you didn't need it, so they tend to look down on a person who would go out and buy things for another. Babying someone, his parents would call it. "You do?" he asked softly, afraid that his parents would be angry with him for it.

            "Yes, we do, and we're proud of you son," his father smiled at him. "You've really shown us how responsible you are, so we bought you something that we thought you'd might like to have." With that, he pulled out a large wrapped box and handed it over to Ran. "Consider this an early birthday present, son."

            Ran looked at the package as he took a hold of it. It was too big of a box to be one that held clothing, beside it looked more like a big square than a flat rectangle. Anyway, he was glad that it wasn't one of those boxes. The idea that he might be receiving another one of those nasty orange sweaters had made his skin crawl, but now those thoughts were wiped from his mind.

            "Go ahead and open it, dear," his mother said.

            After only a moment's hesitation, Ran tore into the brown wrapping that covered the package in front of him. He stopped as his eyes came across words and grew wide in recognition of what his parents had just gave to him. He had been drooling for the last few weeks over the self same system, and now it was here in his hands. He could hardly believe it. This thing coming from his parents, who thought that giving him sheets of paper for his school work, would be a suitable present to give to a person like him.

            "This… this is for me?" he asked them.

            Both his parents nodded.

            Ran smiled, jumped up, and threw his arms around his mother, giving her a hug. "Oh, thank you so much!"

            Ran's father smiled, "Why don't you go try it out. We know how much you've been wanting one, so don't waste any time out here with us."

            Without further encouragement from either of his parents, Ran jumped up, ran into his room carrying the box with him, and began to assemble his new game system.

            It took him less than an hour to get the thing set up and running. The eyepiece was on top of his head and he was about to rock and roll, when he realized that he had forgotten one tiny piece. The game came with a tiny earpiece and microphone that he had to wear during game play, he had an idea of why he needed it. The game that it came with was played on two levels. You could be by yourself or it actually connected you to other players so you could get a better experience of the game. He didn't want to play it alone, so he set it for the connection to other setting and put the last few pieces into place. Pulling the eyepiece over his eyes, he turned the game on and was soon dazzled by how real it seemed.

            It only took him a few moments for him to register everything via the online connection. He was only in the game for about an hour when everything turned black on him. Lifting the eyepiece he looked around in his room and found his sister standing there holding the cord that plugged it in.

            "Ran-nichan! I've been trying to call you for the past ten minutes!" she said wearing a small scowl on her fifteen, soon to be sixteen-year-old face. "Dinner's ready, so come on!"

            Before he could yell at her, or get a word in edge wise she was out the door and heading towards the kitchen.

            He sighed, setting all the equipment off to the sighed of the room, where all the other systems he had were store and followed her.

Author's notes: Well… now… I wasn't going to start another long fic… but this was too good to pass up. I will say this fic was inspired by a dream I had a couple nights ago… although it's not exactly like the dream… If it was… I'd be in there making out with Rannie *purrs*

Schu: They do NOT need to know about the hentai thoughts that float around in your head involving Ran…

Hush you!

Schu: *rolls eyes* Anyway, so as she said it was inspired by a dream… and I just made it better. *smirks*

… He's full of himself… Anyway… guys I honestly need you're opinion of this story… because if you all like it… at the end I'll be doing some altering of it… and probably going to try to get it published… anyway please review. Ja!


	2. Chapter 2: Weiss Kreuz

            Same rules apply to this chapter, I do not own Weiß, but I do and will probably own this idea. Any violators will be prosecuted… (Ok maybe not but I'll get really pissed if you steal this idea and use it as your own.)

Note: _Italics_, represent thoughts of the person.

Chapter 2: Weiß Kreuz

            Ran looked around the tiny flower shop known as the Koneko Sumu-Ie, and stifled a sigh.

            Two years had passed since the day his parents had been generous enough to buy him the Virtual Reality system he had been yearning for and it took less than a week since the first time he had ever logged into the system that his life did a complete flip. No longer was he the avid gamers, trying to save up money for his dear sister's schooling. Now, he was a florist that was only during the daytime, at night he was an assassin. Weiß, a hunter of the night, that denied the black beasts their tomorrows. Fancy words, but they still boiled down to one thing, he was a killer.

            How did he become a murderer? It's a simple explanation, but for Ran a painful one that he tried not to dwell on too much.

            His parents were murdered. Why were they? Because a greedy man, by the name of Reiji Takatori, decided that his parents were in the way, so he had them removed. It was bad enough that the bastard didn't do it to them himself, but had hired hit men to do the dirty work for him. _Bastard… maybe that was the wrong word to use, coward, yes… no, that wasn't right either. Cowardly, bastard,_ Ran gave a tiny smirk at that thought. The cowardly bastard also put his younger sister, Aya, into a coma, from the falling debris that landed around at the time of the explosion.

            Ran shook his head, after all that had happened to him, he had joined an organization known as Kritiker in hopes of vengeance. _Joined? It was more as if I was forced to be a part of them, _Ran thought idly. There was one good that came out of it though, his sister was getting the best treatment in the world. If one wanted to call having their bed sheets changed every few days, the best treatment one could receive.

            The organization accepted him with almost open arms and quickly got him into his training. Soon they found out that he excelled in the art of swordsmanship. A cumbersome skill, but it was one that fit him none the less. While he was training with the blade, they began to train him in other things. One being the language of flowers, which at that time it was happening he never understood it until he became part of his first real group. Weiß.

            Weiß consisted of other men, whom were all part of Kritiker for some reason or another. They had told him why they were killers, but sometime along the way, he just stopped caring about anyone and tuned them out.

            Ran glanced out of the corner of his eye and looked over briefly at the oldest man in the group. His name was Kudoh, Yohji. Former pi, and an obnoxious slacker, he claimed to have come to Kritiker after his partner died.  A person whom he was in love with, but never had the gall to tell her. Now he was just some slut going from day to day, seeing how many dates he could get for whole week. 

            Of course, it didn't help any that he had the good looks and the charms to make any woman swoon.

            He was tall. Shoulder length brown hair swooped down in waves, framing a face that was soft and almost girlish by nature. It shocked Ran that women would go after such a feminine looking man but then again he was almost like that also. The most remarkable part of his face were his eyes, a startling emerald green color that sparkled with such an intensity that made a person wonder if they were his natural color or contacts. He was lean and not very muscular but there was lankiness about him. The only thing that contrasted to that was he was graceful, as graceful as his code name; the Balinese cat.

            What set Ran's teeth on edge the most about Yohji was the fact that the man never took anything seriously. He would only accept a mission if a woman was in trouble, and when one happened to come along, he would always be in a rush to get the job over almost a quickly as possible since he had scheduled a date prior before it happened. Never caring that he would have an early morning shift the next day, and that usually left Ran or one of the others left to cover for him.

            Ran gave an imperceptible shake of his and moved his eyes once more around the shop. Soon enough his gaze landed on his next coworker, Ken Hidaka, other wise known as Siberian.

            Ken, there wasn't really much about Ken that could be told. He ended up becoming a part of Kritiker after he was almost killed by someone in a burning building. He survived of course but he never got what he truly wanted, which was revenge. Revenge against the person who framed him when he had a whole life planned for him. A soccer player, one that was accepted into the J-league at a young age, was how it all happened to. 

            Ran wondered briefly, what it would have been like to be in the young man's shoes when it happened. To be accused of throwing a game with drugs and betting against his team, to the young man wasn't really something he could picture but it was something he tried to do on a daily basis since they were teammates now. He shook his head.

            There was one thing that the young man had going for him, he never seemed to loose his smile, at least that is not when there were customer's around. They were very fond of him for some reason, there wasn't much to him with looks. He was like the normal boy next door. Medium, built like an athlete and had a slight bronze tint to his skin. Maybe it was the boy's eyes, a deep rich brown color that drew most of the women, or kids, to him, then again like said before his personality wasn't that bad, except that he was a little on the naïve side.

            What seemed to shock Ran the most about the boy was even though he was a cold blooded killer when called into action, he still held a bit of his innocence about him, no matter what seemed to befall the nineteen year old.

            Ran moved with looking around. There was no sense in him studying the young boy, too much, people might start to suspect things about him, that weren't true.

            He was almost finished with gazing around the small flower shop when the chime above the door jingled, alerting them that some one had just stepped in. He looked over to see who it was, hoping that it was an actual customer coming in to buy something instead of hanging about giggling and pointing at the four men that worked there.

            His eyes meet no one other than Omi, the youngest of them all and yet the seemingly innocent of them all.

            Omi had no memory of who he was and how he became a member of Kritiker, but they do know one thing. The boy could hack. 

            One would never suspect that from the short, blond haired, blue eyed young man, but Bombay, as he was called during missions, could hack into any security system any computer in the world. A person would almost have to fear him for nothing was safe, technology wise, when he was around. 

            For that reason alone was probably why Kritiker kept him, he had no strength anywhere else. His main weapon was a dart, and he had nothing else to go for him but his searing genius or maybe he was only kept to keep the cover going. Who would suspect four men, one of who was still in high school to be dark beast killers, as they're boss called them. Assassins, now that was a term that applied to them much better than any sugar coating could do.

            "Oi, Aya!" A male voice broke Ran from his thoughts. "Aya!" A tanned hand shot in front of Ran's face and waved causing the red head to involuntarily blink.

            _That's right,_ he thought to himself, _I'm going by her name now. I'd almost forgot about that._

            Ran looked up at Ken with a bland expression on his face. he was the only one within the group that didn't play the show and tell game. To him it was none of their business what brought him there. All he could think about was the revenge, he didn't have time to be nice and make friends. He had a job to do and he was going to make sure that he did it and that absolutely nothing got in his way.

            Because of the man's distant attitude with his colleague, he would at times hear them speak about it him and on how he acted. It was never pleasant but he never really cared.

            He gazed at Ken, "What, Ken?"

            "It's about time you finally woke up Aya! I've been trying to get your attention for the last few minutes!" a hint of annoyance could be detected in the brunet's voice. "What were you doing?"

            "Probably thinking about Sakura-chan and on what he would do to her once he got her on a real date." Yohji drawled out as he leaned against the counter. His arms were wrapped lazily against his chest while a smiled played over his lips in silent laughter.

            Ran glared at the lazy playboy. He had absolutely no intention of ever doing anything with the fifteen-year-old Sakura. In fact, he didn't even want her to be around him anyway, she was a painful reminder of his sister, how she looked, how she acted. Everything.

            How she formed a crush on the older man… he didn't even want to think about it. It was during a mission, she was a victim during it and he had a feeling that they weren't done with her, so he did the logical thing, he talked to her, sort of got close to her. Finally, his feeling came to fruit and she was taken. He went and rescued her, but ever since that day she hounded him, was always getting in his way and just down right annoying him.

            After Yohji's comment, Ran decided to do what he normally did when he came face to face with Sakura. He ignored the ex pi and focused all of his attention on Ken. "What did you want Hidaka?" He said. His voice held that he had other things to do than sit here and listen to the two men unless it was important.

            "I just wanted to let you know that there's an early delivery coming in today. You know, the new stock of coral-bells that we've been waiting for." Ken answered. "I thought you might like to know, so you don't run off. We'll definitely need your help to unload."

            Ran gave an almost imperceptible nod as soon as the ex soccer player was finished speaking. _Well, there goes me being able to visit Aya today,_ he growled mentally as he turned his back to the younger boy  to finish the arrangement of flowers he was working on.

            To the four men, any time they had an "early delivery" it meant that their informant Manx would soon visit them.

            There would be times when they would secretly enjoy the fact that they had foreknowledge of her impending arrival, but there were also times that they loathed it. This happened to be one of those times, for Ran at least.

            Ran glanced over at the small clock centered on the left-handed wall. It read ten after two, only a few hours until she arrived. A few measly hours left of their supposed freedom before they put the shackles of darkness around their wrists, binding them all together in the destruction of the evildoer.

            A few minutes later Ran finished the small bouquet of flowers he was working on and was about to work on another one when the door chimes jingled.

            Finally, the three hours went by, the afternoon rush died down and all was quiet in the store again as the four men began closing down the shop. While they were doing this, a young woman walked in.

            She had shoulder length red hair, almost the same color of Ran's, at a swift glance a person would believe that she and Ran were in some way related but that wasn't the case. Her skin held the same pale quality as most auburn hair people held, but instead of the lavender colored eyes, the paleness of her skin only served to enhance her jade eyes.

            Ran glanced up from the spot he was cleaning and gazed at the clock again. He almost groaned aloud when he realized that she was earlier than usual.

            She fixed her light green eyes over at the four men. "Weiß, you have a mission."

~

            "I told you to speed up the process!"

            "I am! I have to take it slowly or they'll suspect something, especially the youngest one."

            "We're not here to coddle them. I don't care if we fry their brains. We have to know soon, or else I'll have you join them."

            An audible gulp could be heard in the tiny white room.

            "H-hai… I … understand. I'll try my best to speed the process up. Is… there anything else you wish for me to do?"

            "Find the anomaly that's lurking within our system."

            "What should I do with it when it's found?"

            "… Terminate it…"

Author's notes: Well now that, that is finished *giggles* bet all of you are wondering what I'm doing and where I'm going with this? Or have you already figured it out?

Schu: Oh come off of it they already know that you're planning to… *gets muffled by a hand*

*smiles sweetly* Now Schu if we tell them the plot then what's the point of them reading the fic?

Schu: *glares*

Anyway, how was it this time? Ah well *shrugs* like it review if not don't flame it.


	3. Chapter 3: The Mission Plan

            I don't own Weiß Kreuz. It's owned by Takehito, Koyasu.

Notes: _Italics_ are thoughts throughout this story.

Reality's Game

Chapter 2: The Mission Plan

            "Is everyone in?" Manx asked as she looked at the four assassins in turn.

            After they all had voiced their acceptance of the mission, Manx nodded. "Good, I'll leave everything in your capable hands boys." She walked over to the VCR, popped out the now silent mission tape, and left the mission room. Her high heels clicking as she went.

            As soon as the sharp beat of her shoes faded from the young men's hearing, Ken let out an explosive breath. "Oie, I can't believe this! How many missions have we had this week? Three? Four?" He groaned then looked at his teammates. "Are we the only ones who are actually doing any sort of work? What's with Kritiker lately?"

            "Ken, quit bitching. If you don't like the mission, then you didn't have to accept it." Yohji said from his recliner as he pulled out a cigarette and lit it.

            "I'm not bitching… just making an observation."

            "Sounds like bitching to me." A trail of smoke followed that statement.

            "I was not! Besides, why did you take this one on? It's not your style because of the lack of enemies to women."

            Yohji inhaled the smoke from his cigarette for a moment then answered him. "I needed the money."

            Ken rolled his eyes. "Anyway, as I was saying earlier. How many more of these damn missions are they going to throw at us this week? We have to rest sometime. Hell, our customers are beginning to suspect something. How long will it be before they start to ask questions about it?"

            "Kenken, you're bitching again. Just be glad that we don't have to complete it within a certain time frame."

            Omi who was sitting next to his computer, flipping through the mission file, to seeing if there was any other type of information needed. He paused when he came across a short note written to them from Persia. "Ah, Yohji-kun, actually we do."

            "What?" Yohji half exclaimed.

            Ken looked sharply at Omi. "What do you mean, Omi?"

            "Yeah, I was just kidding with the time limit remark chibi." Yohji said.

            "Don't call me that Yohji-kun, and I wasn't kidding. From the looks of the note in here," he tapped the file lightly. "Persia isn't either."

            "How long do we have?" Ken asked.

            "An hour." Was the young blonde's reply.

            "Of all of the…" Yohji spluttered.

            "He'd prefer that we did it in less time, but… an hour seems to be the max." Omi opened the file again and flipped to a certain page. "It seems that we'll be running against a security system that they use. This system, so it's reported, has a tendency to cut off at a certain time for a half an hour each night. That's supposed to be the period we can work with. However, Persia believes that if I work fast enough, I can get in there in the exact moment before it starts up again to cause another glitch, thus making the system behave as if it was that same time again. In the end, it basically gives us another half an hour to work with." He glanced at the two men.

            "Hey, if we can do it once, then we can do it a few more times to make it even longer." Yohji said brightly.

            "I wish we could, but unfortunately… we can't, or at least I can't." Omi said with a shake of his head.

            "And why the hell not? You're the hacker genius after all."

            "Yohji-kun, I've heard about this system before, on the news. It's the type of system where, if you fool it once or try to in any case and everything's fine, but the second you go to try the same trick again… what ever your system is, it's as good as burnt toast."

            "Oh…"

            Ran leaned against the wall by the stairs. The whole time the conversation went on between the three men, he hadn't spoken a single word. He saw no need to really, all he needed to do was listen, and that's just what he did.

            Before anyone could speak another word, Ran pulled away from the wall, walked over to the seventeen year old Omi, and held out his hand. "Let me see that."

            Omi sent him a questioning look but said nothing as he handed the file over to the red head.

            Ran began to thumb through it.

            "Hn…" _There's even less information in here than normal._ Ran thought to himself. _Omi's right though we only have an hour to do this._ He closed the folder. "We can do this." He said fingering the folder. "Omi, I want you to get on your computer and start gathering more information on this guy and the building he's in."

            "Hai!" The kid acknowledged Ran's order, then turned to his computer, and began working.

            "Wait a minute, Aya." Yohji lifted his hand to stall the pale man from speaking anymore. "We're just going to start on this like that?" He snapped his fingers in emphasis of his point.

            Ken smirked at the lazy playboy. "Was our little Yotan expecting to slip away with not working? Perhaps in the hopes of meeting up with some woman?"

            "Shut up Ken. No one asked you to speak up."

            Ran ignored their bickering. "Ken, I want you to help Omi. He'll get you in there, just help him search for information."

            Ken nodded and got to work helping Omi.

            Ran looked over at Yohji, in time to see him begin to stretch and stand up.

            "I think I'll just head to bed and get a bit of sleep before tonight."

            "Kudoh, go finish cleaning the Koneko, that's more important than you sleeping the rest of the day away. Oh, and by the way, I'll be calling up your date in a few minutes and tell her you can't make it tonight. Does anyone know of an excuse that's good enough to use for canceling a date?"

            "You could tell her that he has the runs." Ken piped up quickly.

            "Aya!" Yohji tried to protest. "You can't do this to me!"

            Without a single change in Ran's facial expression, he nodded, "Diarrhea, it is. Now, I'll be back in an hour or so. I want to see this building for myself." Ran walked up the stairs and out of the room.

            As soon as Ran left, Ken and Omi glanced at one another and began laughing uncontrollably.

            Yohji growled at the two laughing boys, and left as well. Although, he wasn't as silent as Ran had been, because only after a few minutes of him being gone they heard a loud bang. It was the door to the flower shop being slammed closed in anger.

~~~~ 

            Silence reigned through out the night, except for the occasional chirping of the crickets, as well as the soft whispering of four men.

            Ran, Ken, Omi, and Yohji stood together, almost huddled as they looked over a map that was currently being displayed on their hacker's personal laptop.

            Now with the four of them being so close together as they were, it was surprising that no passer by was even mildly suspicious about their late night activities. Then again, a normal passer by wouldn't be paying too much attention with the way the four of them were dressed.

            They were, of course, each dressed in their assassin's clothes.

            Ran was in a pair of tight fitting black jeans, it was about the only time you would ever see the man in something that tight. A sleeveless black turtleneck was his shirt. Over all o f this, a knee length trench coat hung about him. Black as all the other clothing he wore and a pair of combat boots adorned his feet.

            His whole outfit screamed Goth, but for tonight and all the nights he wore it no gothic club was ever graced with his presence. Besides, there was no way he would have been allowed in, especially with the evil looking Katana resting at his side.

            The nineteen-year-old Ken stood next to the black garbed Ran and seemed to be a total opposite of him.

            The said man looked as if here were about to go join an unofficial bike tournament with what he wore. A comfortable pair of blue jeans hugged his thighs. The brown shirt he wore looked soft and didn't cling tight to his chest. Old pair of shoes, which he had once said to the others, were his lucky pair, was on his feet. One was half tied.

            There was one thing about his outfit that would on occasion cause one of his teammates to blink in confusion. It was an orange button up shirt that he insisted on tying around his waist. They said nothing about it though.

            He also liked to wear his motorcycle jacket.

            His weapon of choice, the bugnuks were a part of the gloves he wore. To activate them all he had to do was make a fist and four blade like claws would extend. He was the deadliest member in close range combat due to the versatility of his weapon.

            Standing just a little bit apart from the two contrasting assassins, Yohji leaned against his car. A lit cigarette sat between his two fingers and he seemed to be half paying attention to what the other three were talking about.

            He was dressed in plain black leather pants with a dark blue mid drift as his shirt. He was also wearing a floor length midnight blue trench coat with white crosses running down the sides of his sleeves. Even though it was dark at this time of night a pair of sunglasses framed his face, he wore those glasses almost all the time.

            Now on a close inspection of him, it would seem as if he lacked in the weapons area, but he did have one. It was just disguised very well.

            He wore a watch on his wrist and in that watch contained a thin wire that he used to tie up his victims, hang them, or choke them to death with just his two bare hands. He was a hangman without the gallows and highly proficient at it.

            Omi looked at his laptop, deep in thought. His mind was rapidly going over the possibilities on how the mission could be played out. He chewed slightly on his lower lip, giving him more of an outward appearance of being a child than his choice in clothing did.

            He wore a dark blue-black shirt with dark black shorts. A black jacket was worn over it and a bandanna wrapped around the top of his head. A pair of goggles fit snuggly over the bandanna. Other than that last article of clothing, one would think that he was a young child on his way home from the park on a slightly chilly autumn day.

            He, like Yohji, carried no visible weapon upon him, yet in the interior of his jacket a bundle of poison tipped darts laid in wait for use. It wasn't the only weapon that the young man was skilled in using. He also had a crossbow as well as a bow and arrow, but for this mission all the seventeen year old needed was his darts since he wasn't going to be doing any actual killing.

            Omi stopped chewing on his lip after only a few seconds. "From what Ken-kun and I could gather, this afternoon, is this whole building is protected by security guards and the system. Also it seems that our target has his residency here." He punched in a few keys, zooming in for a closer look at the top floor of the building. "This entire floor is his suite."

            "Alright, what's the quickest way to gain access to him?" Ran asked.

            Omi frowned thoughtfully, mulling over the question. He knew that it would have been brought up eventually, but he also had a feeling that his teammates weren't going to like the answer that he had. "I've found only one way to get there." He answered slowly.

            "Which is that?"

            "On the ninth floor there's a door way next to his office. It leads to a room where a single elevator is, nothing else. That's the only way to get to the upper level living quarters."

            "What's so wrong with that, Omi?" Ken asked. "That'll save us sometime and energy that we'll need for when we do it."

            "Maybe so, Ken-kun, but there's more."

            "Oh?"

            "The elevator is protected by a code that's tied into the system's mainframe, so whoever is going in has to be in there before it goes down."

            "Huh?"

            "We have to be in there before the system shuts down on its nightly glitch, otherwise we won't be able to get in. See, if we're get in there a minute or so before the system shuts down then the elevator has no choice but to open at the end, sort of a fail-safe device so the man isn't stuck in the elevator for a half an hour. We'll also need something to keep the doors from closing once we exit. If we don't we'll be stuck in the top level for the remainder of the time."

            A wicked looking smirk appeared on Yohji's face as he listened to the details of the elevator. "You know, we have the perfect doorstop."

            "What would that be Yohji?" Ken asked.

            His smirk began to grow wider. "Why, you, Kenken. After all, it's the only thing that you're level of intelligence can handle." He gave an evil chuckle as Ken started to glare at him. "Ahh, the sweet taste of revenge. Don't you just love it, Ken?"

            "Why you little!" Ken started to swear at the brunet, but was quickly cut off by Omi.

            "Anyway," he said. He knew that if allowed the two men to continue with this type of bickering they would end up getting no where and time was rapidly hitting the time of when they should head out. "Yohji, we're not going to use Ken-kun as the wedge to keep the door from moving. I already brought something to do that. Ken-kun he didn't mean what he said."

            "How long do we have until the system begins its shut down, Bombay?" Ran asked going into full mission mode.  
            "A little over an hour and a half."

            "Ok, this is what we're going to do. Bombay, you're going to stay out here and work with the security system. Siberian, I want you to stay out here with Bombay to cover him just incase of any attack. Balinese and I will go after the target." He glanced at the three men. "Does anyone have any questions?"

            "I do," Yohji said. "What's the code for that elevator?"

            Omi held out a small piece of white paper. "I took the liberty of getting that this morning to save me the trouble of giving it over the COM."

            Ran took the sheet and looked at it.

            After he did so, he handed it to Yohji, who had his lighter out and ready. It was always better for them to burn any paper evidence they had with them, so no one would be able to find a trace of who they were and try to prosecute them for their actions. It also helped with the fact that Ran never needed to keep things on him since he had the ability to remember things, if only for a short time, verbatim.

            A half an hour later, they were prepared and ready for this now simple assassination.

            "Alright, is everyone ready?" Ran asked taking stock of the men. All the equipment was placed. "Remember, only take out the guards if you have to. I don't want any killing before the target's dead. Unwanted attention is never good." He stared at Yohji slightly, who just nodded in affirmation. "Lets go then."

            With that, the two of them headed towards the building.

Author's Notes: Well now, another day, another chapter… and about damn time my muse worked better for me.

Schu: *sniffs* I needed a small vacation.

Right…. Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy this chapter and I want to thank everyone who's been reviewing so far. I'll talk to you later. Ja ne.


	4. Chapter 4: Mission Underway

I don't own Weiß Kreuz. It's owned by Takehito, Koyasu.

Notes: _Italics_ are thoughts throughout this story.

* * *

Reality's Game

Chapter 4: Mission Underway

A young man of about twenty strode down the hallway of a virtually empty building. His boots clicked over the ground as he continued to walk and complain at the same time.

He had a reason for his complaints though, today had been his day off from work and he was tired, from staying up as long as he did.

A yawn rose to his lips, which he suppressed bitterly. _Damn it, I just knew that something like this was going to happen. I should have stayed at home in bed, but noooo she just HAD to call me and ask me over. I curse my weakness sometimes._

A soft smile crept over his lips as he moved away from a tightly sealed door. He knew that his bitching was useless, no matter what time of day it was, he'd go running to his mother's house whenever she would need him. He loved her and at least owed her that much for the life she gave him.

_Still though, _he mused to himself. _Whomever it was that called out tonight is going to get it from me when I find them. Being a security guard is hard enough as it is with plenty of sleep let alone getting none at all._

As his mind continued with it's running monologue, he made his way around his check out area occasionally stopping here and there to check on a door or to adjust his gun.

Everything seemed normal to him as he finished his pass and was about to check over it all again, when he came to a sudden stop.

A young man stood before him when previously the hall had been empty.

He recovered from the sudden shock of seeing him there and hoisted his pistol at the man. "Stop right there," he said in the most menacing voice he could muster. "This is a restricted area." He glared at the intruder.

The young man said nothing, just stared at the guard who stood in his way.

"Leave now or else." The security man commanded, while slowly knocking back the safety device.

Before anything else could happen between the two men, the security officer felt something wrap around his neck and began to tighten.

As it did so, the gun dropped from the man's hand. He slowly began to realize that he had been attacked from behind and was on the verge of being strangled to death. He began to struggle against the choking sensation.

It wasn't long before the body of the unknown guard stopped his useless struggle against the wire thin noose wrapped around his neck. He was nearly dead and his last thought before his conscious gave out was on how he cursed the person who called in sick on his night off.

--OO—

Yohji glanced at Ran, his eyebrow raised as the thin line of wire slid back into it's tiny compartment inside the watch no longer needed. "I could have sworn that our little Bombay said there would be no security here."

He looked down as the now stiff body fell to the ground. He had been shocked to come around the corner after splitting up with his leader to check out that level when he found Ran being held up at gunpoint by the now deceased guard. From his view point the man wasn't supposed to be there.

"He said lightly guarded, not unguarded. If you had paid attention, you would have known that. Did you see anyone else on this floor?" Ran asked him.

Yohji shook his head no. "Iie, he was the only one. The others…" he let that go with a shrug. He never liked doing anymore work than he had to and checking the other floors ahead of time was something to be looked up with extreme disgust.

"Hn, put him in one of the unlocked storage rooms. I don't want our presence to be known if anyone comes up to check on him."

"Really Abyssinian?! I can do that. I thought we could use him for decoration. You know, hang him up from the rafters over there, and liven the place up a bit. Plain white walls are just so boring after all." Yohji bit out sarcastically then bent over and lifted the dead guard at his torso. "You know," he grunted. "I could use your help here. It's hard to lift dead weight all by myself."

Ran nodded, grabbing the corpse by it's legs and soon the two of them stowed their deceased friend in a room, covering him with collapsed boxes and other things to give them more time.

"Now that is a color that's unbecoming for him." Yohji commented as he kicked one last box over the man's now blackened face. "Sometimes, I just hate using these wires. They may cause less mess but they don't help much with people's sex appeal."

Ran rolled his eyes, deciding not to dignify Yohji's idle comments with a response. It wouldn't have done him any good if he tried to anyhow. Yohji always seemed to have some sort of snappy come back no matter what the red head said.

When they finished disposing of the guard, they continued on their way to their target's level.

All in all Ran had to admit they were making good time on this mission. It took them less than ten minutes to reach the elevator from the floor that Yohji had killed the single guard at. Now all they had to do was wait a few minutes before both assassins loaded into the elevator and carried out with their true mission.

"Yohji, you do have the door stop right?" Ran asked mentally cataloguing the equipment, they needed and hopefully had on them. That is… if Yohji hadn't lost one of the main items.

The lanky assassin nodded and reached into one of his coat pockets. "Right here," he said, pulling out an ordinary wedge shaped doorstop. He held it up for Ran to inspect. "Bombay disappoints me sometimes. Do you know why? He supposedly is a humungous genius that could probably do just about anything technical related, but there are times when he's just too plain and simple. Like now, he gives us this thing to keep an elevator open; he could have given us something cooler. To fit in with my towering image, not this dinky little thing."

"Are you quite finished with your whining Kudoh?" Ran asked him.

"Oh yeah, one other thing. The boy won't go out and get himself laid by a hot woman, or hell a hot guy for that matter. Most kids are starting to swing that way now a days, so maybe he would enjoy that."

"Balinese…"

"What?"

"Shut up, it's time to start now."

"Yes sir!" Yohji flipped his fingers at Ran in a mocking salute.

Ran resisted the urge to roll his eyes heavenwards as he started towards the elevator. This was seriously turning into one of those days where he wished that he had brought Ken with him instead of the sexually promiscuous play boy, but he couldn't change it now since the mission was almost over with. It just didn't and wouldn't work that way. It never did really.

He gave an imperceptible shake of his head. Now wasn't the time to be worrying about such things. He had a mission to focus on, not question himself on whether he picked the right partner for this murder or not.

--OO—

The sound of computer keys clacking filled the night air. Omi sat in front of his tiny laptop, typing away, trying to hack his way into the companies main security system. So far, he was having little luck in accomplishing his part of the task. It seemed to the young man that every time he broke through one wall of security, another would instantly appear around him, blocking his way yet again from reaching his goal.

He let out a soft growl in irritation when yet another attempt to by pass the wall failed.

"Is everything alright Omittchi?" Ken asked looking over at the computer genius with concern. "Do you need any help?"

Omi shook his head. "Iie, I'm fine. This is just harder than what I expected it to be."

"What's going on?"

"Every time I break through one section of this thing, another encrypted firewall pops up blocking my way. It's actually getting harder to decode the password each time. Hell, I even tried to upload viruses that will eat away at the block, but they don't even work." He leaned back, cracking his back so he could relax easier. "I'm almost wanting to say that they changed the system around a bit to make it a partial A. I."

He glanced over at the brunet and caught the blank expression that lingered on Ken's face.

He sighed, "Never mind, Ken-kun."

"Ok. Hey, Omi?"

"Nani?"

"Do you want me to get anything for you? A drink, maybe?"

"Ken, we're on a mission."

"So?"

"Ok, let me ask you this. Would Aya-kun just let you walk off for a drink or anything else during a mission?"

"… No…"

"Alright then."

"… But Aya's not here right now."

"No, Ken."

"Fine…"

Omi went back to working on the system. Only ten minutes remained before everything was fully functional again and his teammates would be in trouble. He started to punch in a series of codes, praying under his breath as he did so, that they would work this time, when the entire screen went blank. Thinking he had failed again and been pushed out of the system, the words welcome started to scroll by in big red letters.

"YES!" Omi cried out. "I'm in!"

"Alright. I knew you could do it!" Ken congratulated the seventeen year old.

"Of course. Contact Abyssinian and see how he and Balinese are doing. I want to know if I broke into this system for nothing."

"Gotcha, I'll do that for you."

Omi sat back waiting for Ken to give him to go ahead and began thinking over the image of Manx that he saw earlier that night. "It must have been a figment of my imagination," he murmured to himself. "Either that or I'm finally losing it."

He shrugged and went back to waiting for Ken to call on the others.

A few minutes later, Ken walked back over to the hacked and tapped him on the shoulder lightly. "Ah, Omi… I can't get in touch with them."

"Why not?"

"They're not answering, although I don't know if they can."

"… Are you trying to tell me that they're dead, Ken-kun?"

"No, it's just they're not responding and there's a lot of background noise." Ken screwed his face up." I think they're fighting cause I can hear Aya's screams of Shi-ne."

"Why didn't you tell me that earlier?" Omi nearly yelled at the older boy.

"I was trying to…"

"I have to set the clock back now, or they're in big trouble… if they aren't already." Omi said scrambling to his computer.

As soon as he reached it, he quickly went back to work.

--OO—

Yohji glanced at his watch as he waited for the doors of the elevator to open. "It's almost time for the black out." He said casually. "Do you think we'll need Omi to extend it?" He asked of Ran, glancing over at the red head.

The two of them had made good timing so far in this little escaped that their employers had given them and to the blond it seemed as if they would have nothing but clear sailing for the rest of the mission. That suited him just fine, since it would mean that he would have the rest of the night to party, and even better end up waking in the morning next to a gorgeous woman to reacquaint themselves to one another.

"Hn, we'll wait and see if we need it or not. I'd rather not tell Bombay to not use it just yet. We don't even know what's going to be behind those doors when they open." Ran replied after a moments thought.

Yohji groaned. "Always wanting to be prepared for the worse, eh Aya? This place has so far been, as our resident hacker said, a piece of cake." He paused for a second as the elevator beeped letting the two men know that they were at the floor they wanted. "I mean come on, we're not going to get any resistance here…"

No sooner had those words left his lips, the elevator door opened.

A group of thirty or more men stood around. All wore serious expressions on their faces and carried with them even more serious looking guns, most of which were pointed at the two men standing in the elevator.

Yohji's jaw dropped in horror. "Oh shit," he cursed under his breath softly before glancing over at his leader.

Ran looked at Yohji. His face for a second holding a loud and clear look of "I told you so" before loosing all trace of emotion. "I'll cover you while you wedge the door open."

Yohji nodded and then watched as Ran practically leaped out of the elevator. His traditional cry of "Die!" poured out from his mouth as he did so. The guards didn't expect such a head on attack and two of them had fallen with Ran's masterful sword strokes, before they finally gathered their wits enough to fire on the two killers. That gave the playboy enough time to quickly bend down and shove the doorstop into place. He also had enough time to whisper a fast prayer, to whichever god was willing to listen, pleading for the wedge to stay where it was and not get kicked away by some errant foot or guard thinking he was smart. Then again, there never really were any smart guards in this type of field. They were all usually extremely stupid.

Those types however were the best. They never questioned their orders and did whatever they were told. After a while, they would develop a certain type of loyalty for their employers.

Soon a whole half an hour had passed by.

"Whose bright idea was it for us to accept this mission?" Yohji asked Ran sarcastically from behind their make shift barrier. They had dodged behind one as soon as they could. The heavy barrage of gunfire was something they couldn't evade without surely being hurt.

Ran grunted not trusting himself to speak as of yet. He had been unfortunate enough to be grazed by one of the stray bullets and he was in some pain.

It happened five minutes before hand; they had both been fighting when out of what seemed to be nowhere the bullet had hit his side. They didn't know how deep the thing had lodged into him but the red head knew one thing, it hurt like hell. It was also going to cause him to gain another scar. _Oh well, _he thought to himself with a faint wince, _at least it has other scars to keep it company._

"Balinese," Ran said aloud.

"What?"

"How many more of them are out there?"

"Not too many, you took most of them out with that katana of yours."

"I need number, Kudoh. Saying, 'not many' doesn't help me much."

"Alright, alright, I'll look." He grumbled before turning to peer cautiously out from behind the barrier. "There are five left, two on the right, three on the left. What are you planning Aya?"

"To kill them…"

"Huh?"

"I'm going to distract them while you find the target and kill him."

"Are you crazy, Aya? If you don't bleed to death before hand you'll get killed with another bullet and it won't hit you in the side."

"So?"

"I'm not going to let you do that."

"It's an order, Balinese, no matter what we have to carry out this until the very end." Ran hoisted himself up with his sword. "When you see a break run for it and don't stop until you've reached the target." He jumped out and started another seemingly futile attack.

Yohji sighed, watching and waiting for an opening. When one finally made it self available, he took off, briefly looking behind his shoulder to see his still fighting comrade, hoping that by the time their target was gone, he wouldn't be as well.

* * *

Author's notes: Well now, I hope you guys enjoy this chapter. The mission is underway and it seems like it's been bad.

Schu: Let Ran die!!!!

… Maybe… maybe not we'll just have to see won't we?

Schu: … you suck

Nope!


	5. Chapter 5: Mission's Ending

I don't own Weiß Kreuz. It's owned by Takehito, Koyasu.

Notes: _Italics_ are thoughts throughout this story.

* * *

* * *

Reality's Game

Chapter 5: Mission's Ending

* * *

Ran stood amongst the corpses in the now blood soaked hallway, his chest heaving with each breath he took from the strenuous work out he just had. It was a nasty little diversion he had done to get Yohji on his way and near the end it started to become a little iffy as he began to slow down due to the loss of blood from the gunshot wound he'd received earlier. Thankfully though, the two guards that were left were stupid enough to let the young swords man get in between them.

They were also stupid enough to discharge their guns at the same moment, so that when he dodged the on coming bullets, they neatly became lodged into the chest of the opposite guard.

Ran shook his head at the two dead men, "Fools," he called them before turning his attention in the direction of which his teammate had run off in. He didn't know how much time had passed since he had seen Yohji run off that way from the corner of his eye. He hoped Yohji had enough time in which to complete the mission.

Ran rubbed his face and slid down to the floor. This was supposed to have been a simple enough mission, but everywhere they had turned there were more complications rising up to block their path. He also knew that those armed guards hadn't been there to pay the two assassins any type of social call or to provide them with an escort to their target. They were trying to kill the two men and he had the bullet wound to prove it.

To him all of it could only mean one thing to the red head. They had known Weiß was coming to begin with. How they knew? That question popped up into his mind. Was it because of Omi trying to hack his way into their system? On the other hand, had they been there because there was some sort of leak within Kritiker?

His eyes narrowed thoughtfully.

If there was a traitor there, Persia needed to be told about it and soon.

* * *

"Ken-kun, now what's going on?" Omi asked the brunet anxiously. Their half an hour was almost up and it was causing the hacker to grow more worried as each second passed by. 

"Nothing is. It's all quiet now…"

Omi began to bite one of his nails while musing. "That doesn't sound good. Maybe I should try to reset the time again for them? They probably need it."

"Iie, remember what you said about that thing? If you try to do it again it won't let you. It'll only do more harm than good if you try it."

"You know, Ken, for once I think you said something intelligent, however, you're right." Omi admitted with a sigh. "What are we going to do then?"

"Not insult me to begin with please…. Wait a minute, hold on."

"Hold on?"

"Yeah, hold on, I think I just heard Aya call someone an idiot." Ken said. "Hopefully he was calling Yohji that."

"Really!"

Ken frowned. "Damn it went silent again. … Oh well, I would say that right now would be a good time to throw caution to the wind."

"What do you mean? What are you going to do?"

"Watch, Omi, just watch…" He turned on the microphone. "Abyssinian, do you copy? More to the point are you and Balinese still alive?"

There was a pause as he waited for an answer, which didn't take long in coming.

* * *

The sound of Ken's voice jolted Ran out of his contemplations. "What do you want Siberian?" 

"Is everything alright with you and Balinese?" The voice over the COM asked. "What happened to the both you? We heard fighting."

"A few guards were waiting for us as we got off the elevator. Before you ask again, we're both alive. I'm waiting for Balinese to come back."

"You two got separated then?"

"Had too, the mission wouldn't be completed on time if we didn't."

"Ahh… I think I understand. How long has he been gone?"

"I lost track of time," Ran replied.

Just as soon as he said that, he saw Yohji sauntering down the corridor. "Wait a minute, here he comes. We'll be down soon."

""Okay," Ken said cutting off their signal.

Ran stood; cutting his own head set off and slowly walked towards the playboy. "What took you so long Balinese?" He asked when they both got within hearing distance of each other.

"I needed a smoke, besides the freak didn't want to be nice and keel over dead for me. I had to do it the hard way and with a bit of coaxing."

Ran raised an eyebrow curiously.

"I mean you would think that with my good looks, all he would have to do was take one small look at me and die of jealousy, but nooo," he sigh expansively. "I actually had to do some work."

"Shocking…" Ran murmured to himself before asking Yohji, "The mission is complete then?"

"Yeah, the guy is as dead as a door nail."

"Good, let's go then," Ran commanded turning his back on Yohji and headed back to the elevator. Yohji could tell that the red head was still in pain, because with each step he took it was with the slow precision of someone who had been wounded.

"When we get outside we're going to have to take care of your side." Yohji told him after he had easily caught up with Ran.

"I'll be fine, Kudoh." Ran growled.

"Yeah, sure, be fine all you want, but there's no way in hell you're getting into my car bleeding like you are." He crossed his arms. "If you don't like that then you can walk all the way home."

"Fine."

"I knew you'd see things my way." Yohji said a bit smugly.

The two men stepped into the elevator and were soon on their way down to the entrance of the building.

* * *

"They'll be here shortly." Ken assured the blond boy. "It sounded as if they were fine as well." 

"Good. Let's start getting things packed and ready so we can leave as soon as they come out here."

Ken nodded in agreement and the two began to quickly pick up the equipment and put it away in the trunk of the car.

As soon as they put away everything that needed to be away, they noticed Ran and Yohji walking towards them.

Ran leaned against Yohji, his right arm draped across the lanky man's shoulder while his left hand laid pressed against his side.

"Ken-kun! I thought you said they were alright!" Omi half yelled at the former soccer player before rushing over to Yohji and Ran. "Aya-kun, Yohji-kun what happened?"

"Well, chibi, seems that a bullet was led down the path of seduction by our leader's brilliant personality, so it decided that it wanted to get to know him a little better." Yohji started to explain grandly. "Unfortunately, it found out that his ever so charming iciness was only skin deep."

"Yohji-kun, can't you be serious for once in your life?"

"Oh, I am serious, but only about the things you don't understand about. At least not yet anyway." He flashed the young teen a quick smile. "However, the fool decided to be a decoy for me and took on some guards while happily bleeding to death. On the way out of the elevator he damned near passed out from that blood loss, so can we please do something about this? I would really hate it if he ruined my brand new upholstery."

"Ok, Ken-kun go fetch the first aid kit for me will you?" Omi asked looking behind him.

"Right," Ken grabbed the kit and brought it back to the hacker.

Omi thanked the older man and with Yohji's help placed Ran on the ground. Together they removed some of Ran's assassin clothing before the red head could even protest.

"Hmmm…" Omi sounded at the back of throat as he examined the wounded man. "The bullet is still in there. It needs to come out before we can even try to stop the bleeding." He glanced up at Yohji and smiled sweetly. "It's a good thing they taught me the basics of first aid in school, ne?"

Yohji's eyes widened a little as he watched the young man get everything ready.

"There, preparation is complete." Omi commented picking up a pair of forceps. "Yohji-kun, would you do me a favor? Put a gag in his mouth or something please? We have nothing to dull the pain so it might hurt a bit and I'd rather not have him screaming at the top of his lungs. It might attract unwanted attention."

Yohji grabbed a hold to the sheath of Ran's katana and brought the hilt to Ran's mouth. "Here bite down on this Aya."

As soon as the injured assassin sunk his teeth into the handle, Omi got down to business.

It didn't take the blond too long to remove the bullet for he was quickly bandaging his leader up.

"There, that should keep him from bleeding all over your car, Yohji-kun," Omi said cheerfully while checking the tightness of his handy work. " I want to check this again when we reach the Koneko, though, I want to be sure that this doesn't need to be cauterized."

"Whatever you say kid." Yohji picked Ran up with a grunt. "He needs to go on a diet."

All throughout the whole process Ran never made a sound of complaint but grunted when Yohji made that comment. "You drop me Kudoh, and I'll kill you."

Yohji took him to the car and placed him in the back seat.

When he had settled the man into position, the rest climbed in and they were off to their home.

* * *

"I did as you told me to do." 

"Good, what was their reaction?"

"It's all in the report I just handed to you."

"I know that, I'm asking you however to tell me."

A momentary pause was followed by the sound of a person sighing. "So far there is little to no sign of stress, yet at least. Although, now that one of them is wounded it might help them some. I still feel that they should be given a small break to allow the wound some time to heal. If he dies at this point then it will be no good for us."

"Dead, alive, what does it matter? I'll get someone else if I must. I'll give it some thought, though."

"Thank you."

"However, I think it's time for us to bring out some bigger artillery. It's obvious to me that these paltry assignments are not enough. A real threat is due."

"You mean…"

"Yes, that. As soon as it happens start recording ever bit of data possible and bring it to me. I think I'll enjoy seeing them squirm."

"Yes, sir. Is that all?"

"For now it is."

"Alright, then I'll be getting things ready on my end."

"Oh, yes, one more thing before you go, the threat still stands. Don't do anything and I mean anything to hinder this operation."

"I understand."

"I'm glad you do. You're dismissed."

* * *

* * *

Author's Notes: Well now… it's not as long as I would have wanted it to be… but then again a chapter can be as long as a person wants. Anyway, I'm kind of shocked that I got this finished and it seems to me like my lazy ass muse has finally decided to start working…

Schu: Hn I never stopped to begin with…

Whatever, anyway I hope you enjoyed this. Review if you want, don't if you must. Hail and Farewell!


	6. Chapter 6: Another Day

You know how a person can dream so long and so hard of owning something but then there's that one-day when you wake up and realize you don't own it… The same applies for Weiß Kreuz. I don't own it nor will I ever. My dream has been broken and I have awoken to face reality.

Notes: _Italics_ in the story represent though.

* * *

Reality's Game

Chapter 6: Another day

Yohji sat at the table inside the Koneko and sighed. It was too early in the morning for him to be out of bed, but that was his own fault.

After he had set Ran down in his car, the younger man had passed out. Whether it had been from the blood loss, the exertion, or a combination of both was unclear to the playboy. Whatever the cause may have been, Omi had asked him to cover Ran's shift so that the young swordsman could have time to recover from his wound.

It goes without saying that he had tried his damnedest to get out of having to wake up early those days. In fact, he did everything he could think of on the drive home to tempt their normally easy-going Ken into doing the shifts for him, but to his dismay, the soccer player wouldn't budge.

That was why he was sitting there tremendously tired and bored. He was bored enough to be creating little paper airplanes out of their delivery forms which he would then throw at Omi who was running around the store trying to get things ready for when the customers started to pour in.

Omi paused as he felt something hit the back of his head and set down a potted plant he was carrying. He glanced down to see what had hit him and saw the floor littered with pink airplanes. He sighed over the mess, "Ne, Yohji-kun, could you stop making such a mess and come help me out?"

"With what?" Yohji asked the boy. "Everything's been done already."

"Oh…" The teenager went silent. So, Yohji, thinking that the kid was finished getting on his case, went back to making the planes.

He had finished yet another one and was about to launch it into the air when Omi spoke up again. "Ano, Yohji-kun? Can I ask you something?"

"Sure chibi, go ahead." With that, the paper airplane glided from his fingers only to soar through the air for a few moments before plummeting to the ground.

"If someone starts seeing things… that aren't really there… would the said person be considered insane?"

"Depends on what the person is seeing, chibi. Why do you ask?"

"Well…" Omi hesitated slightly then burst out quickly. "The other night while I was working on that security system I could have sworn I saw someone… but when I turned to look for sure, they were gone. It was like they had just disappeared into thin air."

"Hmmm, it could have been a hallucination, or you were day-dreaming. Who was it that you thought you saw?" Yohji asked.

"Manx…"

A slow smile began to spread over the former private investigator's lips. "Manx, eh? What was the vision you had of her about?" He started teasing Omi. "Was she doing naughty things that a chibi like you shouldn't be thinking about?"

"No she wasn't!" Omi half-yelled, his face turning red in embarrassment. "She was…"

"Come on now, Omi, don't be shy. We all have daydreams especially kinky ones. There's nothing to be embarrassed about." He got up and walked over to his younger, less-sexually oriented coworker and wrapped an arm around his shoulder in a brotherly fashion. "You can just tell Yotan all about it."

"Yohji-kun! She wasn't doing anything like that!"

"But you've thought about it though," Yohji said. He was taking a perverse delight out of teasing the kid.

"No I have not. And all she was doing was walking down the street." Omi pulled himself away from Yohji and glared at him.

"You know, chibi, I'm thoroughly disappointed in you." Yohji said as he frowned and let his arms drop to his sides in defeat.

"Disappointed? You? I should be the one that's disappointed. You're the one that has to take everything that's said and turn it into something sexual!" Omi continued to glower at the man whose frowning still marred his features. "Does everything have to contain some sort of sexual connotation to you?"

"I believe you asked me something to that extent last night, kid."

"No. I asked if you could, for once in your life, take things more seriously," Omi reminded him.

"Oh… well then… to answer your question… yes, it does."

Omi bit back a groan. He should have known not to ask Yohji that type of question when he had known the answer from the start.

"I take sex seriously. However, I wouldn't worry too much over what you saw. It was most likely your imagination," Yohji continued speaking.

"So, you don't think I'm going crazy then."

"Nope, you're not. Besides, it's not a question on if you're going crazy or not." Yohji's voice had a matter-of-fact tone to it as he spoke the next words. "You already are crazy. Hell, if you think about it, we all are… given the line of work we're in."

Omi pursed his lips and gave Yohji a long, hard look. For all Yohji's looks and attitude, he did have times when he was right, and this might be one of them, but… "You know, that doesn't make me feel any better Yohji-kun." Omi sighed softly then gave himself a small shake before putting on his normally cheerful expression. "I guess there's no real reason to worry about that right now, ne. We have a business to run and it's almost time for us to open. That means you need to sweep up the little mess you made with the airplanes. I'm going to take this plant outside."

With that, Omi picked the pot back up and walked off.

As he did so, he heard Yohji groan in frustration at the thought of having to do any sort of manual labor. Strangely enough, he found some enjoyment at Yohji's discomfort, and for the rest of the day, he was happy.

Oo

It had been a peaceful night for Ran. And for him, that was a rarity in itself.

Ever since he had taken up the burden of being the nightly executioner of the dark beasts that lurked within humanity, he was constantly plagued by nightmares. Most of the time, those dreams were merely a trifle, causing him to wake up at some ungodly hour of the night in fear. The fear would easily be dispelled though, and he would quickly fall back into a restful dreamlessness that lasted until morning.

However, with every silver lining there was still a touch of gray. No matter how small that lining was.

On the night before a mission and the night after, he would find that his dreams would go on a rampage through his mind. To put it mildly, the young man would get little to no sleep.

Those were the nights that he would use his insomnia to think over his past, to study it, and see if he could have somehow changed the outcome by doing something different, said something else, or even been forewarned ahead of time.

When he did that, he could never come up with a different solution. The "what ifs" he would come up with never worked out. Because in the end, he would remind himself that it had been an outside force that caused him to chose the path he had taken. Fate played her cruel hand in this, and he almost hated her for it.

After he came to the realization that there was nothing that could have been done to change his life, he would sit there, in his room, wondering if his teammates went through the same thoughts as he did. Of course, he would never ask them about that.

Then at other times, he would get this unexplainable urge to find a game console and play it no matter how old the system was. During those nights, he would shake his head and berate himself for allowing such childishness to come over him. He was a killer now, as well as an adult, and didn't have time for such useless frivolities.

That morning, though, as the first rays of sunlight filtered through his blinds and fell across his still-closed eyes, Ran awoke feeling strangely refreshed if not a bit sore.

He sat up, stretching his sleep-tensed muscles carefully. It wouldn't do him any good to tear his wound open. He looked at the time that read eleven am.

His first thought was he had over slept.

He scrambled out of his bed. Never, in all the time he had lived and worked as an assassin, had he slept so late.

As soon as he had gotten out of bed, the door to his room opened, and Ken walked into the room holding a steaming bowl in his hand.

"Oi, Aya, you're awake," the boy said cheerfully. "That's good. We thought you were going to sleep the whole day away."

There was no acknowledgement from the older man; so, Ken took that as a good sign and continued speaking.

"Anyway, I made some miso for you. I figured you'd be getting hungry soon." A had filled Ran's face so Ken spoke up in consolation. "Oh, don't worry, I didn't make it from scratch. Yohji made us buy that instant crap a while back, and that's what I used. It's not that bad. I've had it before; besides you need to eat something." He held the bowl out to Ran. "Go ahead, eat it."

Ran glanced down at the bowl being offered to him. Its white broth with chunks of tofu and strips of seaweed seemed to look normal to him, so he took the bowl and drank eagerly from it. _It didn't taste bad either_, he conceded to himself.

"Why didn't one of you wake me up," he asked as soon as he finished eating.

"Omi said not to bother you. You'd lost a lot of blood," Ken explained. "Besides, a full day of sleeping seems to have done you some good."

Ran looked down at the empty bowl in his hands; his mind half-adjusting to the time. It pained him that even a day had gone by with him laying in bed doing nothing but sleeping. Yet, he figured out that in the end it had all worked out for the best.

"Who's been covering my shift for me?" Ran asked half-curious.

"Would you believe that our little Omi talked Yotan into taking your shifts for you?" Ken chuckled. "You should have seen it though. He did everything he could think of to try to get out of it."

"How much damage did he cause?" Ran asked his gut tightening in foreboding. To put Yohji in the store first thing in the morning tended to be a disaster waiting to happen especially when you scheduled him to work any morning on the weekends. The combination of exhaustion from clubbing so much and the after affects of imbibing too much alcohol didn't sit too well with the ex-private investigator, so Ran usually had the foresight to exclude him from any morning work.

"Shockingly enough, there was absolutely no damage," Ken said. "Well except for the fact that Omi just told me that we're out of delivery forms."

"I don't think I want to know why."

Ken just shrugged. "That's fine… oh yeah, before I forget, Omi wants you to stay in bed."

"Hn, I'll be fine." Ran said. "I don't need to stay in bed like a sick child."

"That's up to you, but if it were me, I wouldn't want to invoke the poutiness of Omi," Ken said. "Ah well, that's not any of my business. I just came to give you some food and to see if you were awake yet."

"Which you've dispensed with your duties already."

"Exactly, now I have to get ready for my shift," Ken said giving the older man a half-salute before turning and heading towards the door. He stopped at the door and looked back at Ran. "Oh, by the way."

"What?"

"Manx hasn't been by with a new mission since that last one. I think Kritiker is finally giving us a small break in business." With that, Ken left Ran to his own devices.

_Time off…_ he thought as he began to get dressed, _who has time to relax when you have things to do, places to go and people to speak to? _Like Omi, for instance; Ran needed to talk to the boy about the report he had sent to Persia. He might even get a chance to read it as well. Moreover, he wanted to look over the information Omi and Ken had gathered the day before and compare it to the information supplied to them by Kritiker.

He wanted his facts straight before he went to Persia with the accusation that someone, even though he didn't know whom, was a traitor or Kritiker's information gathering wasn't as reliable as they believed it to be.

In a way, that thought worried Ran. If their security wasn't holding up very well, then worse things could happen the next time they were on a mission. Instead of being wounded, he could be killed, and that would leave his sister in worse shape than she was in now.

He sighed. Thinking about his sister made him realize that it had been a while since he had last saw her. And that ended up causing him to hold off his conversation with Omi until later that night.

He left his room and made his way out of the house and down the street.

As he walked to the hospital, his mind drifted over the many thoughts that were jumbled together in his head. He was so lost in thought, that he was unaware that he was being watched by someone or something.

Oo

"And they call themselves assassins," a nasally sounding voice said as he watched the unsuspecting Ran move down the street. "Look at him. He wouldn't even be able to hurt a fly."

"I wouldn't mock them if I were you," a soothing, yet, assertive baritone said. "They're Kritiker's best assassins, remember?" He looked over at the man who had spoken.

A sneer of derision amongst outlandish, carrot-red hair greeted him. For a brief moment, he wondered why in God's name had anyone allowed that man, Schuldig, to have such brightly colored hair and obnoxious fashion sense as well.

Schuldig wore a dark green double-breasted coat with freshly pressed white dress slacks. What was worse was the yellow bandana that the man sometimes wore. Which thankfully today, he had not.

"I know they are Brad, but come on. Talk about a bunch of pansies." He gestured to the now distant shape of Ran. "He didn't even realize that we're right here."

Brad ran his hand through his black hair and looked over at the flower shop Weiß worked in. Unlike his partner, he always dressed for business success, and today he was here for business. Though staking out a place in a crème colored Armani suit wasn't one of the best ideas he, because of all of the sitting he had been doing the suit was now wrinkled.

"Can we just attack them and get it over with?" Schuldig asked. "I bet we could take them out like that." He emphasized his point with a snap of his finger.

"No our orders for now are to watch and wait. More to the point, we're still missing two of our… colleagues."

"Those two? Bah, we don't need them. We're by far superior than they will ever be."

"We're to follow our orders, Schuldig. If you don't like it, they will be more than happy to terminate you," Brad gave his partner a quelling glare.

"Alright, alright, I'll leave them alone… for now," he said with a wicked tooth-filled smile lighting up his face. "But when the time comes, don't you or anybody else dare hold me back. Do you hear me, Brad? Not you, them, no one had better get in my way."

Laughter that could only be described as menacing echoed throughout the tiny car, and for once in his life, Brad only sat there and smiled at his partner in complete understanding and full agreement.

* * *

Author's Notes: Well now it seems I've gotten this finished now. I don't know why but I've been having better luck writing chapters for this story and Green Eyes Watching than any of the others.

Schu: -smiles- It's because I'm enjoying giving you evil idea's for these two.

Whatever it is I guess I should be thankful… Anyway, I hope people who do read this enjoyed this chapter. I think I enjoyed writing it.

Schu: You did.

Anyway, review please I would really like to know what you think of this story.


End file.
